Sony 'Honami' smartphone may shoot 4K video on 20.7 MP sensor

Sony's upcoming flagship smartphone, the Xperia i1 "Honami", hasn't exactly been kept a secret in the lead up to its announcement, with alleged specifications leaking out last month. Now we're hearing that this phone might be one of the first to feature 4K video recording on an impressive 20.7-megapixel sensor, made possible thanks to Qualcomm's Snapdragon 800 processor.

Leaked promotional material has detailed the Xperia i1's camera, claiming that it shoots video with a resolution of up to 4,000 x 2,000. This is a slightly unusual resolution for video capture, as it doesn't match the standard 4K Ultra HD resolution used on TVs (3,840 x 2,160), but it's not entirely impossible. The 1/2.3-inch 20.7-megapixel Exmor RS sensor has enough pixels to facilitate such high-resolution capture, so the slides may well be telling the truth.

The Honami is said to include a Qualcomm Snapdragon 800 processor, which features a 2.2 GHz quad-core CPU and Adreno 330 GPU, as well as support for 4K encoding and decoding. The hardware in the phone will technically make it possible for Sony to include 4K video capture, but there may be bottlenecks in the system - such as low memory bandwidth - that could cause heavy compression.

Other rumored specifications include a 5-inch 1080p LCD display, LTE radios, 2 GB of RAM, 16 GB of internal storage, a microSD card slot, water resistance, and a 3,000 mAh battery. Leaked photos of the device indicate it's larger than the Xperia Z, which also includes a 5-inch display, so the phone might be harder to hold and operate than its older brother.

Sony is expected to unveil the Xperia i1 on September 4 in Berlin, ahead of IFA 2013. The device is certainly looking to be a monster, especially in the camera department where it'll rival the Nokia Lumia 1020's 41-megapixel shooter.